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Bluejays Learn Fast, Enjoy 'Magical' Rise
October 13, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
It’s complicated finding just the right word to describe what Shepherd’s girls golf program has accomplished over the last three seasons.
Incredible. Improbable? Coach Julie Prout calls it “magical,” and that might work best of all.
Before the fall of 2015, there was no Shepherd girls golf program. That August, it held its first practices ever, and two people in the entire program had some golf knowledge coming in. Prout herself was not one of them – she wasn’t a big golfer at the time, although now she loves the sport.
How can she not with all her team has enjoyed so quickly? As this September came to a close, Shepherd won its second straight Tri-Valley Conference West championship – earning the first MHSAA/Applebee’s “Team of the Month” award for the 2017-18 school year. The Bluejays added their first Regional title Wednesday and are ranked No. 9 in today’s Lower Peninsula Division 4 coaches association poll.
“I have an extremely hard-working bunch of girls. They play all summer and then they are in a simulator in the winter; they have their hands on golf clubs a lot,” Prout said. “Other than that, I would tell you they have great chemistry. They’re hard-working, they’re great students, really good people, and they are enjoying golf.”
Shepherd shot an aggregate team score of 929 over five TVC West jamborees this fall, averaging out to 186 strokes per nine holes and 46.5 per player whose scored counted toward the total. The Bluejays shot a 410 in Wednesday’s rainy gloom at home course Maple Creek to finish 16 strokes ahead of reigning Regional champ Frankenmuth and move on to next weekend’s Lower Peninsula Division 4 Finals.
Three Bluejays, all juniors, placed among the top 10 at the Regional, which was astounding considering again that those golfers were incoming freshman the first year of the program. In fact, junior Maggie Bryant was the catalyst in the team’s formation, making initial contact with the athletic department about starting a team. Prout, now in her 30th year teaching in the district, also coaches softball and coached cheerleading a while ago, and took on the golf program in large part because no one else showed interest.
Shepherd had nine golfers the first year and 10 last season. The Bluejays then graduated four off the team that not only won that first league title but made the MHSAA Finals and finished 15th in LP Division 4 last fall.
This season there are six players, but they’ve become good ones – lone senior Adri Bush, juniors Bryant, Morgan Yates and Olivia Raymond and freshmen Maddie Skeel and Georgia Kusbel. As a group, they’re talented and busy; Yates also plays volleyball, while Skeel is a likely all-conference cross country runner and Kusbel runs cross country and plays high-level club ice hockey in addition to golfing in the fall.
Four players are shooting in the low to mid-40s on average; Yates shot an 18-hole 96 to take third at the Regional and Raymond was fourth at 99, while Bryant was ninth at 105.
Again, only two players had notable knowledge of the game before two years ago. So on the first day in program history, Prout started with fundamentals. She took some of what is taught in the local youth program, and a graduate of Shepherd’s boys golf team came in and taught basics. Prout, with the help of her coaching colleagues in the TVC, learned and taught the many rules of the game, and Shepherd’s boys program welcomed the girls into one big family. (The boys team won the Class C-D championship all the way back in 1970 and also has had recent success winning its Regional this past spring.)
“I put a lot of people in front of them that were knowledgeable,” Prout said. “We had a lot of help along the way from past coaches who were on the staff years ago. I’ve taken them to different courses to play, but also to be instructed by the youth programs. I’ve learned just as much as my girls.”
And now the Bluejays are passing it forward. Clare has a first-year team this fall, and Prout said see the Pioneers this fall was like looking in a mirror.
Shepherd offered its knowledge and anything else, paying it forward just as so many did in getting Prout’s program off and golfing.
Her athletes are a little tired now, she admits, from playing a lot of golf to this point in the season. But the Bluejays surely have two more great rounds left in them this fall with another incredible opportunity to accomplish success seemingly years ahead of schedule.
“Years and years and years ago, one of my players, Morgan Yates, her mother played with the boys on the boys golf team, and I coached her in a different sport,” Prout said. “Now her daughter, they’re building something here. These girls are the foundation of what’s to come in the future, and I tell them every day how special it is – and it really is.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Shepherd’s girls golf team poses with its championship trophy after winning a Regional title Wednesday. (Middle) Shepherd girls golf coach Julie Prout, left, and lone senior Adri Bush. (Photos courtesy of Shepherd’s girls golf program.)
![Northville golf](/sites/default/files/2021-10/211016_D1g_2H.jpg)
Northville Title Streak Grows, Boczar Sisters Close in Dominating Fashion
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
October 16, 2021
ALLENDALE -- The Northville girls golf team suffered a rare loss to Plymouth at last week’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Regional.
But it provided the Mustangs with ample motivation to turn the tables on their closest challenger and extend a historic run.
Northville won its fourth straight MHSAA Finals on Saturday by completing a two-day total of 615 strokes at Grand Valley State’s The Meadows.
Plymouth placed runner-up, 12 strokes back, while Okemos (650) took third.
Plymouth senior Bridget Boczar captured the individual medalist honor after a final-round 3-under-par 69 gave her a one-stroke win over her twin sister, Grace Boczar.
“I think, if anything, losing Regionals to Plymouth really motivated us to play better at states and helped us prepare more versus winning Regionals and coming into the first (seed),” Northville senior Haesol Park said. “I wasn’t part of the first (Finals championship), but it’s really been an amazing experience. It’s just amazing to be part of a team and not just individually winning. Just the whole team contributing to win one big award. It’s unreal.”
Another senior standout, Megha Vallabhaneni, led the Mustangs with a pair of stellar rounds.
She carded a 75 on Friday, and added a final-round 1-under-par 71 to place third overall.
“It’s obviously an awesome feeling, but there was a lot of pressure going into it with already winning three (in a row),” Vallabhaneni said. “Losing to Plymouth did affect us, but we knew we were going to do well and we played one stroke at a time and one hole at a time.”
Also contributing for Northville were junior Samantha Coleman (154), senior Meghana Lanka (162) and junior Avi Gill.
The Mustangs became the eighth school in MHSAA history, and second in the Lower Peninsula, to win four straight Finals, and also the first to do so in Division 1.
“Obviously to be in that elite company is amazing, and it's not something we talk about a lot, but we also understand that there are those opportunities in front of us to take advantage of,” Northville coach Chris Cronin said. “Winning state titles and adding our name to the record books with winning four in a row is an incredible feeling, and it has been an incredible journey for me and for this team.”
Despite his team being the favorite entering the Finals based on past successes and the return of four from last year’s squad, Cronin cautioned against looking too far ahead.
“I think the great challenge all year has been living up to those expectations that everybody thinks you are a shoe-in for the state title, but we knew both Plymouth and Okemos were going to be outstanding teams,” Cronin said. “Just keeping our head about us. We didn’t win Regionals, and maybe that made us play a little loose on day one and we were a little more comfortable. We had enough of a lead yesterday that we didn’t have to build on it too much today to take the victory.”
A total of 13 golfers were within four strokes of the lead entering Saturday, but Bridget Boczar emerged from of the pack with the best round of the Finals after opening with a 74.
“It was really exciting, and I didn’t really focus on winning this weekend,” she said. “I just focused on striking the ball well, putting a good stroke on my putts and then I knew eventually I would be at the top of the leaderboard somewhere.
“Just to finally make a few birdies on the back nine felt really good, and to end up on top, it’s great to finally get the job done.”
Grace Boczar was tied for the first-round lead with an even-par 72, and again shot 72 on Saturday.
“I didn’t care where I finished this weekend as long as I played well, and I did that,” Grace Boczar said. “I played some of the best golf I have all season, and so I’m very proud of how I played. I just focused on my game and what I could control and did that well.”
Both sisters are headed next to Oakland University to play golf.
Plymouth also placed Finals runner-up in 2018.
“This is one of the best teams Plymouth golf has ever had, and we’ve come in second twice in the last four years,” Bridget Boczar said. “It’s a little disappointing not to win, but Northville is so good and they are such great competitors. They really deserved it.”
The field also included the past two Division 1 individual champions. Okemos senior Allison Cui, who won the 2019 Division 1 Final and then claimed the Division 2 championship in 2020, tied for seventh this weekend. Grand Blanc junior Kate Brody, last season’s Division 1 champion, tied for fourth this time.
PHOTOS (Top) Northville's Samantha Coleman hits out of the sand during Saturday's second round at The Meadows. (Middle) Plymouth's Bridget Boczar shows her team's score card, which notes her individual championship score. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)